


Lighter

by allthetrek



Category: The Outer Worlds (Video Game)
Genre: Fluff and Angst, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-16
Updated: 2020-04-16
Packaged: 2021-03-01 17:28:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,637
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23690857
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/allthetrek/pseuds/allthetrek
Summary: The Captain accepts Max's apology, leading to a confession of feelings and a budding romance. Max reflects on his life since meeting the Captain in Edgewater.
Relationships: The Captain/Maximillian DeSoto
Kudos: 22





	Lighter

The peaceful sound of the nearby waterfall was a stark contrast to the anger and confusion bubbling up inside of you as you walked away from Chaney, Max at your heels. You’d just talked him off the ledge, preventing him from murdering the so-called scholar the two of you had come to meet. For over a month now, you’d planned to find this elusive scholar to help Max, the man who’d become your friend and confidante.

But it was all a lie. He’d been planning revenge for the wrongs he thought he had suffered. But Chaney didn’t seem like the villain Max made him out to be. He’d given in easily, offering a nugget of peace, the location of a hermit that could possibly help Max. You wouldn’t have let Max hurt him… Would you have? What would you have done if he hadn’t listened to reason?

Your boots splashed through the shallow water, but all you could focus on was the sound of Max keeping pace behind you. Not at your side, as he usually was. He knew you were pissed.

“Captain, can we talk?” he asked, as the two of you made your way up the grassy embankment. The afternoon sun glinted off the Unreliable in the distance, docked on the Fallbrook landing pad. You stopped walking and took a breath, steadying yourself, then spun around to face Max.

Max’s chest tightened as he took in your expression. He was a perceptive man. You could usually conceal your emotions when needed, but you didn’t with him, and he was grateful for that. He was grateful for a lot of things about you. His life in Edgewater had been miserable, with no end in sight before you’d arrived. Every night he would lie in bed and question everything about his life, tormenting himself with angst and regret. But since he’d joined you and your crew, he’d begun to feel lighter. If only he could have let go of his obsession to find Chaney, to make him pay. But he was human, and flawed… So flawed, he thought to himself. He felt like an absolute pile of raptidon shit.  
***  
“You owe me nothing, I know, but I’m… I’m begging your forgiveness,” Max breathed to you, his eyes pleading, his remorse evident. You looked him straight in the eyes, gauging his sincerity, and you found it to be genuine.

Your expression softened a little, and you looked down, your hand reaching out to him, coming to his at his side. Your fingers cautiously brushed along his and Max inhaled with surprise as you took his hand, his fingers reciprocating as he held you back. His heart twinged as you looked back to him, your eyes bright once again with the inexhaustible compassion he’d come to admire and respect.

“Of course I forgive you, Max. I’m… Not perfect, either,” you said with a sigh and a self-deprecating smile, and his lips twitched into a relieved smile in response. He felt your warm skin against his, as you squeezed his hand just a little with reassurance. It felt good to touch you. He had thought of it, of course. He’d been thinking all kinds of things about you lately. Things that made it hard to keep lying to you about Chaney. So hard, in fact, that he’d barely slept last night, filled with conflict and unease at what would transpire today. But he’d let himself go through with it, and now he knew he would do whatever he could to make it up to you, if you’d let him.

“Thank you, Captain… [Y/N]…,” he breathed, a weight lifted from him, though much weight still remaining. “Though I must disagree. From where I stand… You are perfect,” Max confessed, the words cascading from his lips before he could think about them. He spoke from the heart, a heart suddenly unburdened by hate and revenge, thanks to you.

You noticed the way Max was looking at you, the awe and admiration in his eyes. And something more… Primal. His eyes flitted to your lips, just for a nanosecond, then back to your sparkling eyes. Your perceptive nature picked up on this, as you considered his words.

“I… Thank you, Max… Wait, are you saying… Do you have… Feelings, for me?” you asked, a note of hope in your voice that encouraged him further. He had said he would be nothing but truthful to you from this point forward. Max’s chest tightened, his stomach suddenly in knots, his brain almost shorting out from the complete polarization of emotions he’d gone through in the past several minutes.

“Yes, [Y/N], I do have feelings for you, ones that are far from… Platonic,” Max stated with an earnest smile, his tone steady and confident, though he felt far less confident inside. He searched your expression, waiting desperately for your response.

“I… Why didn’t you say anything, before now?” you asked him, though part of you didn’t care, he was saying it now. Your heart was starting to race with emotion, anticipation.

“I was… Consumed by my search for truth, yet I failed to acknowledge what is in my heart. Perhaps I… Didn’t want to acknowledge it. To let myself feel, to… Complicate things between us. I can only imagine what you must think of me, [Y/N], and I understand if you don’t…”, he continued, but suddenly your warm lips were on his, absorbing his words, transmuting them into the intense passion that had been building between the two of you since Edgewater.

Your hands snaked around each other, yours up his chest to his broad shoulders, his around your waist, holding you against his core, and you felt pangs of desire pulse through your being. You kissed passionately, tasting each other for the first time, taking in the scent of each other’s skin up close, your eyes closed, your senses overwhelmed with each other.

Finally, you pulled apart, breathless, looking into each other’s eyes, cloudy with emotion and lust. Max smiled at you, his arms pulling you into his chest, and you wrapped your arms around him, hugging him back, listening to the sound of his pounding heart beneath his shirt. Your fingertips traced along Max’s back, and for a moment he forgot about anything and everything else in the colony. His tormented search for the truth, his tumultuous past, the uncertainty that lay ahead.

Your scent wafted through the air on the breeze and for a moment you enveloped his senses, overpowering even the sulfurous Monarch atmosphere. Max’s fingertips kneaded into your back, and you reveled in the feeling. You sighed into his chest, and he made a mental note that you liked it.

Finally, the two of you broke apart reluctantly, your moment of connection and bliss a welcome reprieve from the other events of the day. You started to walk back to the ship, your pace slow. There was still tension between you, and Max understood why. You would need some time to process what had happened. To trust him again. But you would get there. And if you could keep your heart open to him, you would be amazed by the love he had to give you.  
***  
Max sat on the edge of his sleeping pod that night, taking his usual deep breaths and clearing his mind for a meditation. When he’d gotten up this morning, he never could have predicted how the day’s events would unfold. He’d had knots in his stomach for weeks now, torn between developing feelings for his Captain, and his quest for truth, that had become tainted by a desire for revenge.

He’d never met anyone like you. From the day your paths crossed in Edgewater, he knew you were different. There was something about you, that he just couldn’t put his finger on. The fact that you were an outsider, and Edgewater didn’t get many of those, yes. But it was more. He had spoken to you, not expecting much more than the usual, to have his words go in one ear and out the other, like most people he talked to. But you understood his words, his humor, his sarcasm, his deeper meanings, and you could volley back. He could have a real conversation with you. And that in itself, was enough to intrigue him.

Had he asked to leave Edgewater with you, purely for the sake of finding his elusive answers? It was such a longshot to ever find Chaney, and he’d known that. He was fed up with Edgewater, yes, but it wasn’t like him to risk everything, even possibly his life, by uprooting himself, leaving his assigned post, and setting off into an unknown future.

Max sighed, resting his head in his hands, his index fingers massaging into his greying temples. It was you. There was no question about it. His head was clear now, and he felt lighter. And it was all because of you. The dark cloud he had been living under for years was starting to dissipate, and for a moment the slightest twinge of something flashed through his mind, and reverberated through his chest, his heart. What was that?

He closed his eyes, reflecting further on the feeling. He still wanted, needed, answers. He felt a pull to something, an end in sight, but what that would be, he wasn’t sure. But there were no roiling thoughts in his head at this moment. His mind, he realized, was quiet. Blissfully absent of its usual turmoil.

Max held onto this state of calm as he submerged himself under his bedcovers. His head relaxed into his pillow, and your image flashed into his mind’s eye. It was the last thing he thought of before drifting into a deep, peaceful sleep, the first in a very long time.


End file.
